The old metaphor about the experts examining the elephant is so familiar to us because it has so many applications. One at a time the experts inspect the different parts that they happen upon of the massive creature, and announce with triumphant finality impossibly irreconcilable descriptions of what it is. Each, of course, is not just wrong, but comically so.
Sometimes that reminds me of all the various gurus’ talk about leadership. They mean well, but they’ve only just caught a glimpse of it. And yet they seem to be so struck by what they think they observed, they become irreversibly convinced that they’ve seen it all, in all its permutations and manifestations. There is, in their minds, no doubt any more about what leadership is, or what it takes to be a leader.
As each guru returns from the beast with a different impression of what it is, a new niche in the leadership market opens up. And that brings us to the other side of the metaphor.
You see, we all know that it’s an elephant. And that allows us to have a laugh at the expense of the experts. But as far as leadership goes, well – to be honest, we really have no clue what it is, either. And while we try to make our way through our daily burdens, we don’t have time to navel-gaze over the issue.
But we do recognize that understanding what leadership is – or, better yet, how to be leaders ourselves – could be of great help to us. So we give some credit to those who do have time to ponder the subject, especially if they seem to be somehow specially credentialled for the task.
That is, we provide the demand for those ever multiplying leadership market niches. It is only to be expected that others will provide the supply.
One of the purposes of our examination of all of this over the past several weeks and months has been to try to see if we can generate sufficient relief from the pressure of these prevailing ideas to enable us to perceive something new, a greater whole, by questioning the bits and pieces we’ve been presented so far. We’ll be returning to that again. I hope you’ll be with us when we do.
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Today’s tip: Speaking of having greater confidence in our knowledge than is warranted, please visit Management-Issues for Nic Paton‘s report about how fully three-quarters of America‘s new managers are ill-equipped for their duties.
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2 Comments
Jim – I’d guess that the problem is not defining “leadership,” but recognizing that, like “love,” there are as many definitions as there are people who want to talk about it or who are purported [by themselves or by others]to be “doing” it. Now, if we measured by the consequences rather than by satisfying an arbitrary definition, we’d be standing on more useful ground, wouldn’t we?
Hello Lee,
I think the issue of the multitude of definitions of leadership is a problem that needs addressing, particularly if we want to be on solid ground when attempting to approach it from its consequences. However, approaching it from that direction may actually be a useful way to help us determine more accurately what it really is, so I appreciate and agree with your point.
Thanks for your visit, and for offering such incisively flexible thinking to the topic!
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